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Elisabeth Sladen
= Elisabeth Sladen| image = Elisabeth Sladen crop.png| caption = Sladen in 2003| birth_name = Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen| birth_date = | birth_place = Liverpool, England, UK| death_date = | death_place = Southall, London, England, UK | death_cause = Cancer| othername = Elizabeth Sladen, Elisabeth Miller| nationality = British| occupation = Actress, presenter, writer| spouse = Brian Miller (m. 1968–2011, her death)| children = Sadie Miller (b. 1985)| television = }} Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen (1 February 1946Sladen was born in 1946, though this was often erroneously reported as 1948. * *General Register Office index of births registered in January, February and March 1946 – Name: Sladen, Elisabeth, C.H. District: Liverpool South Volume: 8B Page: 303. * * *Births Jan, Feb & Mar 1946, Liverpool S., Vol. 8b, Page 303 – Sladen, Elisabeth C.H. FreeBMD.org.uk – 19 April 2011''The Sunday Times Magazine'', 18 December 2011, page 64) was an English actress best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in the British television series Doctor Who. She was a regular cast member from 1973 to 1976, alongside both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and reprised the role many times in subsequent decades, both on Doctor Who and its spin-offs, K-9 and Company and The Sarah Jane Adventures. ---- Early life Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen was born 1 February 1946 in Liverpool, England. Sladen was the only child of Tom Sladen, who fought in World War I and served in the Home Guard during World War II, and Gladys (née Trainer). She developed an interest in performing at an early age, beginning dance lessons when she was five, and dancing in one production with the Royal Ballet. She was a primary school contemporary of future politician Edwina Currie, appearing in at least one school production with her. She went on to secondary school and attended Aigburth Vale High School for Girls. Career Early career Sladen attended the Elliott-Clarke Drama School.In 1964, she made her first film appearance in Ferry Cross the Mersey as an uncredited extra. Sladen then joined the Hillbark Players, for their open-air production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Hero. After two years at drama school, Sladen began work at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager. Her first stage appearance at the Playhouse, was as a maid in Twelfth Night. A few months later, she played a corpse in The Physicists. However, she was scolded for giggling on stage due to her future husband Brian Miller whispering the words "Respiration nil, Aston Villa two" in her ear while he was playing a doctor. Sladen was such a good assistant stage manager that she did not get many acting roles, a problem that was solved when she accidentally made a mistake on one occasion. An earlier interview indicated that she deliberately made mistakes on several occasions. As a result, she began to get on-stage roles again. Sladen eventually moved into weekly repertory work, travelling to various locations in England. Sladen and Miller moved to Manchester, in 1966, spending three years there. They married on 8 June 1968. She appeared in numerous roles, most notably as Desdemona in Othello, her first appearance as a leading lady. She also got the occasional part on Leeds Radio and Granada Television, eventually appearing as a barmaid in 1970 in six episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. In 1969 she and her husband appeared in the play "How the Other Half Loves"; when in the Autumn of 1970 the play moved to London, the couple relocated to there. Her first television role in London was in a two-part story of Z-Cars. These two episodes of Z-Cars have since been wiped and are listed as missing episodes by the BBC's archive library. She then appeared as a terrorist in an episode of Doomwatch, followed by guest roles in Z-Cars (again), Public Eye, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Special Branch. Sarah Jane Smith In 1973, Doctor Who actress Katy Manning, who was playing the Third Doctor's assistant Jo Grant opposite Jon Pertwee, was leaving the series; Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock gave Sladen an enthusiastic recommendation to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts. Sladen arrived at the audition not knowing it was for the new companion role, and was amazed at Letts's thoroughness. She was introduced to Pertwee, whom she found intimidating at the time. As she chatted with Letts and Pertwee, each time she turned to look at one of them the other would signal a thumbs-up.Barry Letts, commentary to DVD, The Time Warrior The role of Sarah Jane Smith was originally given to comic actress April Walker, but allegedly during rehearsals for debut story The Time Warrior doubts over the pairing of Walker and Pertwee surfaced and the part was re-cast to Sladen. She stayed on Doctor Who for three-and-a-half seasons, alongside Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth. She returned to the character of Sarah Jane Smith on several occasions. In 1981, new Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner asked her to return to the series to ease the transition between Tom Baker and new Doctor Peter Davison. She declined but accepted his second offer of doing a pilot for a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, co-starring K-9, the robot dog from Doctor Who. However, the pilot was not picked up for a series. Two years later Sladen appeared in the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors. She reprised the role in the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, and in the 1995 independently produced video Downtime alongside former co-star Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield. This was her last on-screen appearance as Sarah Jane Smith for some time. Sladen played Sarah Jane in several audio plays. Two of them were produced for BBC Radio, The Paradise of Death (Radio 5, 1993), and The Ghosts of N-Space (Radio 2, 1996), together with Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney. In 1997 Sladen won Hall Of Fame Actress in Cult TV Awards Big Finish Productions produced two series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day, released in 2002 and 2006. Miller appeared in the story Ghost Town. Her daughter Sadie appeared in the audios. In later years, Sladen had also participated re-visiting several classic Doctor Who serials on DVD in doing audio commentaries and interviews (in the stories she starred in), but as of 2008 she stated in an interview that she was no longer doing them due to "contractual reasons with 2entertain". Following the successful revival of Doctor Who in 2005, Sladen guest starred as Sarah Jane in "School Reunion", an episode of the 2006 series, along with David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Sladen worked a lot of the characterisation herself – in the lead-up to the broadcast of "School Reunion" she was quoted in the Daily Mirror as saying: "Sarah Jane used to be a bit of a cardboard cut-out. Each week it used to be, 'Yes Doctor, no Doctor', and you had to flesh your character out in your mind — because if you didn't, no one else would." She also spoke favourably of the characterisation in the new series. Sladen won best guest appearance in the annual Cult TV Awards Following her successful appearance in the series, Sladen later starred in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Doctor Who spin-off focusing on Sarah Jane, produced by BBC Wales for CBBC and created by Russell T. Davies. A 60-minute special aired on New Year's Day 2007, with a 10-episode series commencing broadcast in September 2007, and a second 12-episode series was broadcast in late 2008. The programme won a Royal Television Society 2010 award for Best Children's Drama. Sladen also read original audio stories on CD for The Sarah Jane Adventures, which were released in November 2007: The Glittering Storm and The Thirteenth Stone. This was the first time that BBC Audiobooks had commissioned new content for exclusive release on audio. Further pairs of audio stories were released every year until 2010, all read again by Sladen. Sladen appeared in the final two episodes of Doctor Who’s 2008 series (season 4) finale "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's End" and was credited in the title sequence of both episodes. Her final appearance in Doctor Who was a scene in the concluding part of "The End of Time", Tennant's last episode as the Doctor. Just before her death, Sladen had also been interested in being involved in the Doctor Who Fourth Doctor Big Finish series.Big Finish – News ---- ---- Other work While Sladen was in Doctor Who, she attended various public events to publicise the programme. Following her departure, she largely stopped attending related events as she felt it could be seen as bad manners to the new cast. After Doctor Who, she returned to Liverpool with her husband and performed in a series of plays. This included a two-hander with Miller in Mooney and his Caravans. Notable appearances following that include a two-year stint as a presenter for the children's programme Stepping Stones, a lead role with Miller playing her husband in ITV drama Send In the Girls, a BBC Play for Today, a role as a stand-up comic's spouse in Take My Wife, and a small part in the movie Silver Dream Racer as a bank secretary in 1980, only her second film appearance. In 1981, former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts cast her as the female lead in the BBC Classics production of Gulliver in Lilliput. The character of Lady Flimnap was written for Sladen, and she said it was her favourite role. She continued to appear in various television adverts and in another Letts production, Alice in Wonderland (playing the Dormouse). After the birth of her daughter Sadie in 1985, Sladen went into semi-retirement, placing her family first, but finding time for the occasional television appearance. In 1991, she starred as Alexa opposite Colin Baker in The Stranger audio adventure The Last Mission for BBV Audio. Sladen also appeared in a Bernice Summerfield audio drama, Kate Orman's Walking to Babylon. Following the audio production of The Paradise of Death in 1993, Sladen restarted her regular public appearances in the United Kingdom. In 1995, she played Dr Pat Hewland in 4 episodes of Peak Practice. In 1996, she played Sophie in Faith in the Future, and appeared in 15 episodes of the BBC schools programme Numbertime, which was repeated annually for around ten years. This was her last television acting appearance until the 2006 Doctor Who episode "School Reunion". In 2008–09, Sladen appeared in a panto production of Peter Pan at the Theatre Royal Windsor, playing Mrs. Darling and a beautiful mermaid. Sladen's last fan event was at the British Film Institute on 12 October 2010, where there was a special showing of The Death of the Doctor, followed by a Q&A session. Her last public appearance was at the EA British Academy Children's Awards on 28 November 2010. ---- Autobiography Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography was released posthumously on 7 November 2011 by Aurum Press Ltd. The book was launched at 'The Doctor Who Experience', Kensington Olympia on 26 November 2011, in the presence of Brian Miller, Sadie Miller, Tom Baker and Terrance Dicks.The BBC released an audio CD version of the book, read by fellow Doctor Who alumna Caroline John, on 1 December 2011. Personal life Sladen married actor Brian Miller in 1968 in Liverpool.General Register Office index of marriages registered in April, May and June 1968 – Name: Sladen, Elizabeth, C.H. Spouse Surname: Miller District: Liverpool Volume: 10d Page: 561. Their daughter, Sadie Miller, appeared alongside Sladen in the 1993 documentary, Thirty Years in the TARDIS, wearing a replica of the Andy Pandy overalls Sladen wore in The Hand of Fear. ---- Death Sladen died early on 19 April 2011, after having been diagnosed with cancer in early February. Sladen's death was widely reported—on the BBC 1 Ten O'Clock News; as one of the rolling headlines of the BBC News channel for the day; featuring prominently on many commercial television news reports; on the front page of the Daily Mirror, The Sun and the Liverpool Echo; and in the obituary features of almost every UK newspaper. The Doctor Who, Series 6, Episode 1, "The Impossible Astronaut", was aired on the following Saturday; and it opened with a screen dedicating the episode to her memory. Directly after, a special programme called My Sarah Jane: A Tribute to Elisabeth Sladen was aired on CBBC. The Hand of Fear was also shown on BBC Four as a tribute. At the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, during the film clips of people who had died in the past year, Sladen was the final person to be shown. Singer-songwriter Talis Kimberley wrote a tribute song titled Goodnight, Sarah-Jane. Tom Baker paid tribute to Sladen on his official website. Filmography Television Personal appearances Tributes ---- Film ----— Radio and CD audio drama ''' Bold text ' References ' External links ''' *Online TV Interview on Liverpool Reporter hosted by Jonathan Thompson with Elisabeth Sladen in 2006 * BBC Norfolk webTV: Elisabeth Sladen previews the Sarah Jane Adventures* * * BBC Norfolk webTV: Lis Sladen reflects on School Reunion – October 2006 *BBC Norfolk webTV: Elisabeth Sladen interview from April 2006*BBC confirm return of Sarah Jane Smith * *Den of Geek interview with Elisabeth Sladen Category:1946 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Actresses from Liverpool Category:Cancer deaths in England Category:English film actresses Category:English people of Irish descent Category:National Youth Theatre members Category:English radio actresses Category:English stage actresses Category:English television actresses Category:20th-century English actresses Category:21st-century English actresses